The Sofia Inn

The Parlor Suite The good stuff about the Sofia Inn:

• Located on a leafy street in the heart of brownstone Brooklyn.
• An old beautiful house with to-die-for ambience
• Situated thrillingly close to Manhattan (two blocks from four subway lines, all of them only 20 minutes from Manhattan)
• Two blocks from Grand Army Plaza, epicenter of the world's greatest borough (don't take it from us; take it from editors at the renowned Lonely Planet travel guide who, last year, included Brooklyn in their list of world's must-see places).
• Mere steps to Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Zoo, the Brooklyn Public Library's main branch, the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, the Brooklyn Museum of Art (second largest art museum in America), and, best of all, the Park Slope/Prospect Heights neighborhood-the city's hottest neighborhood.
• Restaurants, taverns, music, theater, sports, 24-hour delis: all the amenities of Manhattan, but with Brooklyn's brownstone charm, a magnet to an exciting mix of brokers, writers, artists, activists, and students.

  The bad stuff:

• There's nothing bad! It's all good! We can't wait to meet you!

Built in 1901 after the construction of Prospect Park (crowning achievement of the great landscape architects Olmstead and Vaux), the Sofia Inn is located on one of Brooklyn's leafiest and quietest blocks. And it is a 20-minute subway ride from Manhattan, and steps from many of the borough's great spots: Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, and all the shopping anyone would want (outside of Manhattan).

Just some of the reasons why, since 1998, the Sofia Inn has been hosting people from all over America and the world. Starting with a single room, it now has four rooms and two apartments, each lovingly designed. All rooms have gorgeous, hand-picked furniture, comfortable beds with firm mattresses, cable TV, and air-conditioning.

A traveler myself, I am eager to share with guests my knowledge of the city. And as a Brooklyn resident for 28 years, a cab-driver for eight of those years, I know the city like a map. I have also taught public school, worked as a photo-retoucher (before Photoshop obliterated that career), and written for the Village Voice, the New York Times, New York Magazine, the Daily News, and other publications. In 1997, I began teaching English at Baruch College.

Throughout all these changes, it has been my good fortune to live in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn's most beautiful, most exciting neighborhood (that's not a contradiction). Once owned mainly by Jews and Italians (you can still find homemade wine presses in many basements), its brownstones are rapidly being renovated by upwardly-mobile whites, blacks, and Asians from all over the world. The Sofia Inn sits smack in the middle of this excitement; comfortable, yet close to the action.Prospect Heights and Park Slope have all the amenities of Manhattan, some of Brooklyn's fanciest restaurants, as well as a fair number of coffee shops, 24-hour delis, and friendly taverns.

The New York Times designated Prospect Heights "New York's Next Great Neighborhood."
Here are eleven reasons why we agree (all within close proximity to our Inn):

1. Brooklyn Academy of Music. America's oldest performing arts center.
2. Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. Fifty-three acres, 13,000 plant varieties, the world-famous Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden.
3. Brooklyn Children's Museum. The nation's first museum created for kids.
4. Brooklyn Museum of Art. The second largest at museum in America.
5. Celebrate Brooklyn. One of the world's great free festivals.
6. Greenwood Cemetery. An outdoor museum. Magnificent mausoleums and ancient gravestones.
7. Prospect Park. Designed by Olmstead and Vaux, 526 acres of fields, woods, lakes, playgrounds, ballfields, horse paths, and waterfalls.
8. Prospect Park Zoo. A small gem, designed especially for kids, with more than 400 animals living in nature-like habitats.
9. Brooklyn Public Library. Shaped like a giant art deco book, this is the main branch of Brooklyn's 59-branch system.
10. Labor Day Caribbean Carnival. More than a million revelers from every Caribbean nation, scores of floats, and hundreds of dance troops march the five-mile route up Eastern Parkway.
11. Park Slope. Exactly one block away, our sister neighborhood is one of Brooklyn's toniest main drags. Clogged with restaurants, taverns, stores; a nice place to hang out.